Six-game skid leaves Spurs’ perch atop West pretty shaky

The late-season litany of Spurs misery that has resulted in six straight losses has the team at a crossroads.

Coach Gregg Popovich waits to see which direction his players will choose, the momentum wrung from a once-historic season now hanging in the balance in the final six games of the regular season.

“We’ll see what we’re made of now,” Popovich said after the latest exercise in crunch-time futility, a 119-114 overtime road loss to the Houston Rockets on Friday that narrowed his team’s margin over the surging Lakers to a single game in the loss column.

“I want to see how these guys react. It will be real interesting to see if we can dig down deep or see if they’re going to feel sorry for themselves and lose intensity and trust and belief in each other.”

Visiting hours in the observation ward begin early today, with a noon tipoff at the AT&T Center against the Phoenix Suns, another team clinging to a thin shred of hope that it can join the Western Conference playoff field.

While the Spurs were suffering in Houston, the Suns snapped their four-game losing streak and staved off postseason elimination. They beat the Los Angeles Clippers despite losing two-time MVP point guard Steve Nash, who headed home from US Airways Center before tipoff with flu-like symptoms.

The Spurs’ resolve seemed fragile after a loss that continued a pattern of late-game charity that has even the most robust of locker-room psyches on a razor’s edge. A glance into their locker room at the Toyota Center revealed a team struggling to deal with the latest disappointment:

– Team captain Tim Duncan sat at his locker, head in hands, for many minutes.

– Emotional leader Manu Ginobili retreated to the training room before slipping away to the team bus without comment.

– George Hill could barely muster a whisper while forthrightly acknowledging his part in another stunning failure to secure a victory that appeared within grasp. It was Hill’s errant pass in the final minute of the fourth quarter gave the Rockets the opportunity they needed to send the game into OT.

There was no evidence that tears had been shed, but a quiet pall hung over the scene.

Duncan, whose arrival in 1997 ushered in an era when a six-game losing streak at any point in the season became unthinkable, believes the team’s challenge is simple enough: narrow the focus to the task at hand.

“The challenge is to win one game,” Duncan said. “We’ll start with one, and we’ll go from there. That’s all we’re concentrating on. We’ve got Phoenix on Sunday, and that’s all we’re worried about. We’ll try to win that game and go from there.”

Point guard Tony Parker scored 31 points in Friday’s loss but went scoreless in overtime, missing three shots, including a layup. He understands the frailty of confidence under pressure but says the Spurs need only to maintain belief that their recent difficulties can be corrected.

“We just have to stay positive,” Parker said. “I know it’s hard to think like that, but that’s all you can do. We have to think positive, and hopefully it will turn our way. We’ll see what we’re made of, that’s for sure. All these losses at the end of the game will build your character. You either fold, or you react and you try to do even better.”

Popovich doesn’t appear to have lost faith in his team. Rather, he seems energized by the challenge it faces as the playoffs approach at warp speed.

“This is great stuff,” Popovich said. “We’ll see if they were worth what they did for most of the season and see if this adversity knocks them out or makes them strong. In a way, it’s a great challenge, and if they step up, it will be a great playoff (run).”